Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Our friend Arnold asked me to
send him a CD with all 144 photographs that I took in Berlin. As soon as we came home to Paris, I made
the CD and on Monday we took it to La Poste before we went to do chores at
the other apartment. My how La Poste has changed
during the 12 years we’ve been summering in Paris! In the first years, our
neighborhood post office was a dingy place.
We’d go in, stand in line forever, and then finally be served by a
snarly low-level bureaucrat who spoke only French, of course. There was nowhere to go but up
for La Poste, I thought. Several years ago, I noticed
that in addition to improvements in the lighting and the installation of
little rooms on the left side for loan officers (La Poste is a bank as well
as a post office, you see), the old snarly low-level bureaucrats had all
retired. In their places were younger,
smarter, friendlier low-level bureaucrats who, immediately upon hearing our
American accents, would want to try to use their English on us. Last summer, I think I used the
neighborhood Poste only once, near the beginning of July, to buy
international letter envelopes already to mail (i.e., no need to buy and
affix stamps). These handy things come in
packs of ten, so I didn’t need more this summer. I still have several left. So Arnold’s request is what
prompted our first pilgrimage to La Poste of this summer. I knew that the function of La
Poste as a bank was becoming increasingly important, and that it probably had
overtaken the post office function in terms of delivery of services. At the end of last summer, we had visited
La Poste across from the Senate building – the Luxembourg Palace – with the
bubbly little Madame Laijti to deposit our rent money to be paid to
Elisabeth. I wasn’t surprised at all to
see that this location of La Poste looked identical to a bank inside. But I was surprised on Monday
to see what had been done to our neighborhood Poste on the rue de la Croix
Nivert in the 15th arrondissement.
We entered a brightly lit
room. All the little partitions and
solid counters with bullet-proof glass had been removed. The entire room was open as one big space,
except for a couple little rooms for loan officers. It looked kind of like an
American pack-and-ship and office supplies shop inside. There were some machines off to the right
and a few people using them. I thought
these were just the same old machines for selling stamps that La Poste has
had for some time. Gone were all the young
low-level bureaucrats sitting at their posts along the missing counter with
the missing bullet-proof glass. In
their place were two jovial women. One
worked behind an open counter in one corner that had a sign that said “All
Services” hanging above it. The other
woman was helping a customer at a small round high-top table in another
corner. Naturally, we took the little
packet with the CD addressed to Arnold in Germany to the woman at the “All
Services” counter. She kindly directed
us to the other woman. It turns out that “All
Services” means “All Banking
Services.” The other woman was there
to assist with all postal services. But, as she explained to us,
for something as simple as what we wanted we should use the machines. This surprised me because this little
package would have to be weighed first, and international postage then
applied. She saw our confusion and
offered to go over to the machines with us so she could demonstrate their
functions. These machines have scales
built into the top. She placed our
packet on the scale, and then showed us what sequence of “buttons” to press
on the touch screen. Then the
machine’s screen informed us that the cost of sending this item would be 1.60
euros. Tom inserted the coins, the
postage printed out, the nice lady put it on the packet and promised us that
she’d put it in the mail for us. We thanked her profusely, and
said our gooddays and goodbyes. This
one woman now has the job that was formerly done by about six low-level
bureaucrats. I believe I remember reading
about these changes in La Poste in the newspaper last summer. From the articles, I could not tell at all
what the changes would really be, I just knew that the union for the postal
workers was very unhappy. La Poste, I
believe, responded by saying that the reduction in work force would be by
attrition, not layoffs. Nevertheless,
the union was unhappy because eventually they’d have a lot fewer members to
represent. I wonder if these kinds of
changes will come to the U.S. Postal Service.
I cannot see the people of Sanibel putting up with having to use
machines for everything and rarely having the assistance of a real person
behind a counter. We shall see. I wonder if people in quaint
French country villages use machines at the post office, or do they still
have real people behind counters there? Now we notice that all the new signs on the various outposts of
La Poste that we pass say “La
Banque Postale” instead of “La Poste.” I don’t think the U.S. Postal Service has
the option of becoming a bank. What
will they do? The International Herald Tribune just recently published an
article on this topic. The
question is up to John Potter, CEO of the U.S. Postal Service. This man has one tough job. After reading the article, it is apparent
to me that he has far more government restrictions and requirements tying his
hands than La Poste does in France!
That is a real shocker. |
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
I love these electronic, ever-changing signs that the
city of Paris has erected near important metro entrances.
The strange art exhibition (see June
30) under the Pont Alexandre III was still open before we went to Berlin,
but now it is closed.
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